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For a few years now were were learning that freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to insult other people's most dearly held beliefs. This maxim is very oftenly used today when discussing anti-Islamic views. Do you agree with this? Are anti-islamic movies tantamount to shouting "fire" in the theatre? Are European governments correct in their attempts to silence the anti-islamic views? Should the European government continue to apologize to the moslem dictators for the anti-islamic views expressed in Europe?

A few days ago, a <a href="<link>">movie</a>, which connected Koran and terrorism was released. As one could expect, threats of violence silenced of the distributors of this movie. Here is the link to this movie, use it before it too goes silent.

Lastly, I hope you enjoy this plethora of quotes about freedom of speech. After you are done reading it, tell us if you agree with them? If yes, do they in any way defend the right to insult Islam?

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager


The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. ~Tommy Smothers


Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~Potter Stewart


We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764


The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. ~Walt Whitman


Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire


I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech. ~Nancie J. Carmody


The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959


Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. ~Abbott Joseph Liebling, "Do You Belong in Journalism?" New Yorker, 4 May 1960


A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad. ~Albert Camus


To reject the word is to reject the human search. ~Max Lerner, 1953, on book purging


Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935


What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. ~Sigmund Freud, 1933


Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823


Every burned book enlightens the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The paper burns, but the words fly away. ~Akiba ben Joseph


Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson


If you don't have this freedom of the press, then all these little fellows are weaseling around and doing their monkey business and they never get caught. ~Harold R. Medina


Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture. ~Theodore Schroeder


Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. ~George Bernard Shaw, "The Rejected Statement, Part I," The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, 1911


I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it. ~Mae West


Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself. ~Dick Cavett


The test of democracy is freedom of criticism. ~David Ben-Gurion


If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor▓s prohibited list. ~John Aikin


To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves. ~Claude-Adrien Helvétius


Censorship offends me. ~Author Unknown


We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~John F. Kennedy


God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. ~Rebecca West


If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~Noam Chomsky


Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." ~Lenny Bruce


Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man! ~Thomas Carlyle


Books won't stay banned -
Ideas won't go to jail.
~Alfred Whitney Griswold


You can cage the singer but not the song. ~Harry Belafonte, in International Herald Tribune, 3 October 1988


I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire


The populist authoritarianism that is the downside of political correctness means that anyone, sometimes it seems like everyone, can proclaim their grief and have it acknowledged. The victim culture, every sufferer grasping for their own Holocaust, ensures that anyone who feels offended can call for moderation, for dilution, and in the end, as is all too often the case, for censorship. And censorship, that by-product of fear - stemming as it does not from some positive agenda, but from the desire to escape our own terrors and superstitions by imposing them on others - must surely be resisted. ~Jonathon Green, "Did You Say 'Offensive?'," as posted on wordwizard.com

It is odd how islamic special segments/interests seek to stifle open scrutiny or talk about their public activities

Yet they do not harbor the same feelings when it comes to disparaging other religions or institutions or... non-believers

I think that "political correctness" and the school of thought that makes is "wrong" (illegal?) to say anything that might possibly hurt anyone's widdle feewings ...........have caused us to deny ourselves and other people their Constitutionally correct "freedom of speech".

that European leaders believe they have to satisfy the sensibitilies of moslem dictators, they do not expect moslem dictators to satisfy European sensibilities.

We don't care how you Europeans handle problems we figured out a long time ago.

Here is your answer:

If you can't be successfully sued for it.

It's Free Speech !

Firstly, I am not sure you can in any way that you personally figured it out - in contradistinction to the Founding Fathers, the dead white males. Secondly, does your little quip indicate that you support the status quo and oppose the proposed legislations banning hate speech?

Things are somewhat more complex than they appear at the first glance, aren't they?

a heap of BS created by the left

And I was giving you the solution that already exist here. If you speech leads to actions. Your ass may end up in court. No need for banning. The Klan lost their headquarters to an old black lady over hate speech. So the system has been test and I'm fine with it.

you cons another empty meaningless issue to whine about. So quit pretending you don't like it.

redtide:

a heap of BS created by the left

It has not been approved yet.

And I was giving you the solution that already exist here. No, you could not actually explain what the solution is. If you speech leads to actions. Who's actions? Say, an artist creates "piss christ" work - and upset christians kill a dozen moslems. Do you propose to arres the "artist" for inflaming the people? What if a black pastor says that whites are evil and they rob black people - and there is a black riot, and people get killed? Should this black pastor be sent to jail? What should the law say? Your ass may end up in court. No need for banning. Aha. So, even though the action is not explicitly forbidden, you may be punished for it. Good bye American laws and the Western principle "Everything which is not explicitly forbidden is allowed". We are back to the arbitrary system of punishements. You just threw out the foundation of the free world. The Klan lost their headquarters to an old black lady over hate speech. So the system has been test and I'm fine with it. So, because people you don't like lost property, you conclude that the law is good. Hm. Bravo.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

gringo_911:

It has not been approved yet.

And I was giving you the solution that already exist here. No, you could not actually explain what the solution is. If you speech leads to actions. Who's actions? Say, an artist creates "piss christ" work - and upset christians kill a dozen moslems. Do you propose to arres the "artist" for inflaming the people?

That is not an example of hate speech

What if a black pastor says that whites are evil and they rob black people - and there is a black riot, and people get killed? Should this black pastor be sent to jail?

Where something like this ends up in court you take in the consideration the intention behind the message. If his actions were seen to have the intent of spurring that kind of action he would be held liable. I never said people should go to jail either. For that you would need to show that he directly encouraged people to riot.

What should the law say? Your ass may end up in court. No need for banning. Aha. So, even though the action is not explicitly forbidden, you may be punished for it. Good bye American laws and the Western principle "Everything which is not explicitly forbidden is allowed". We are back to the arbitrary system of punishements. You just threw out the foundation of the free world

You can be sued for a lot of things that are not explicitly forbidden by law. It's not illegal to leave spilled grease on a floor. If I slip on it and fall. I can take you to court and seek your punishment for being negligent

. The Klan lost their headquarters to an old black lady over hate speech. So the system has been test and I'm fine with it.So, because people you don't like lost property, you conclude that the law is good. Hm. Bravo.

No I am saying there is a remedy in already in place.

partizan:

We don't care how you Europeans handle problems we figured out a long time ago.

Here is your answer:

If you can't be successfully sued for it.

It's Free Speech !

I don't like that definition. It leaves it in control of the lawyers, and organizations like CAIR and the ACLU. You say you don't care how the Euros deal with it and that we'll do it our own way, but your definition of our way essentially ends up with the same result as the European way.

Of a judge or jury of fellow citizens.

Pogue Mahone:

partizan:

We don't care how you Europeans handle problems we figured out a long time ago.

Here is your answer:

If you can't be successfully sued for it.

It's Free Speech !

I don't like that definition. It leaves it in control of the lawyers, and organizations like CAIR and the ACLU. You say you don't care how the Euros deal with it and that we'll do it our own way, but your definition of our way essentially ends up with the same result as the European way.

alameda929:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

BINGO !

DONE AND WELL DONE !!